


How to Buy Drugs on the Internet

by DharmaPolice



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Character Study, Cyberpunk, Edgy, Gen, Horror, Other, PROJECT AU, Project, Temporary Character Death, i really dont know where i'm going with this, lame cyberpunk bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2020-08-23 09:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20240776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DharmaPolice/pseuds/DharmaPolice
Summary: Jinx, a disposable NEET, becomes a valuable asset, whether she likes it or not.





	1. Chapter 1

HOW TO BUY DRUGS ON THE INTERNET

Jinx was bored. Bored with the nonsense conversation on message boards, bored with the matchmaking hell she’d face if she tried to play something competitive, bored with the fact that if she tried to just space out and enjoy herself with a video game, she’d get hyper-focused on something and just get frustrated, and most of all, bored with the vast array of dubiously legal substances she kept hidden in one drawer of her room. 

Just to make sure, she’d take a peek, rifling through vacuum-sealed bags and reading barely comprehensible labels that had been smudged, due to the standard-issue ‘stealth delivery’ inevitably dropping any grey-area products she bought into a bush.

STP? Had it, gave her nosebleeds and a headache, no buzz, didn’t wanna finish. Plus she read an article about the STP Family who made the stuff being the worst kind of fiends. Didn’t wanna support them. The little booklet of tabs is replaced.

Alavar? Helped her gym time, but it’d been too long since she went to the gym. She was also pretty sure if she took it again her temper would take a turn for the worse, and Jinx didn’t need a worse temper. The re-purposed pill bottle is tossed away.

And, of course, a couple memory sticks that she wanted to put into the rig installed in her skull, that were supposed to drop her into some serious Isekai shit. Though, she’d always been too chicken to try them. Bad software wasn’t as immediately obvious as bad chems, and there wasn’t many harm reduction facilities that could help her with a rat-fucked fantasy chip lobotomizing her, slow-rolling her IQ until she was left warbling out heroic threats and rousing speeches in a hospital bed, gown collecting drool. 

So, pass, pass, and hard fucking pass. And if that was all she had, she’d be bored for a while. Going outside was such a pain, and she was pretty sure that all of her contacts for mental exploration had either been busted or turned honeypot. What else could you do in this situation, besides let your eyes roll into the back your skull as the software in your head connected you to the big grey-market in the sky? She closes her eyes, adopting the lotus position and concentrating, slowly working her way into the proper headspace to turn on her rig.

Her nose would pick up the scent of ozone, and her body would feel weightless as the GUI coaxed itself out from the edges of her eyelids, leaving her meat-self sprawled out on a futon as her mind explored the marketplace, scrolling her way through not-yet-OTC-in-some-areas pills, people trading away their last stock of recently banned medications, illegal chemicals just barely modified to become something different-yet-similar, and a couple goofy manifestos posted by friends of the owners. Part of her does want to check out Machining Around Federal Firearms Laws, finding that whole field interesting, but figured she shouldn’t get into that much trouble at once. Besides, PDFs just tended to collect and gather dust in her skull, digital detritus she’d sweep away soon enough. 

As all her thoughts are devoted to navigating and rendering the dreamscape she willed herself into, Jinx hardly noticed her hands shaking, the tingling feeling across her back, or the beginning notes of a headache that’d eventually take center stage, her surroundings dropping out to into a throbbing, uncomfortable, blackness as it took complete control over her point of view. The metal rigging implanted in her head started to feel uncomfortably hot, causing her hands to subconsciously trace and paw at the gentle ridges that betrayed where the circuitry went. 

Her eyes saw sparks, like she had just taken a deep breath of air after holding her head underwater for too long, and those sparks would grow and join with each other until they formed a massive, white, halo, lightning up a non-existent sky and shining a spotlight in the darkness. 

But, was it really a halo? No. The small black dot in the center of that massive, artificial-celestial being tracked her as she wandered about the confines of the light, going left, and right, and every which-way until it laser-focused on her once she came to a complete stop.

Jinx wasn’t staring at the sun, she had just locked eyes with something much larger than her.

Animal-brain tells her to run, far away. If something is in the dark, it’s not as obvious as the massive being spying on her. Her attempt at scurrying away from view is a resounding failure, as something knocks her back into the light the second she makes contact with the dark. It takes her a second to process what happened, a series of sudden, deafening, noises and images going through her brain all at once, leaving her to react like she’d just been punched in the back of her head, her nose tingling as something drips onto her top-lip. She dares not taste or drag her fingers across that cleft to figure out what was there.

It’s safer to sit cross-legged, dazed, in the middle of the spotlight. Soon enough, a voice crawls up from her spine into her ears, as if someone was using her nerves like their own vocal cords. 

“It would be preferable if you chose to stay in the area that I have curated for you. The last few wetware-things who ventured into parts unknown tend to bite off their own tongues while their rigs melt into their bones, their heads overloaded with information. Brain-death via spam, as it were.”

A lack of reaction from the still figure below prompted an additional statement. “I am threatening you. Speak.”

Jinx is now lying down, limbs sprawled every which-way as she stares up at the eye, her glare half-lidded as her head’s still swimming. She manages to murmur out, “Noted.”, before turning over and burying her face into the ground that wasn’t there. An old VR-surfer trick, that’d let her feel the sheets of her futon and ensure that she was still where she was, even if she couldn’t bring her eyes back to reality. 

The ground was hard and cold, instead. Somewhere different.

Her panic, slow and bubbling up from her gut to her temples, was immediately met with yet another condescending monologue. 

“There are a variety of options that explain the failure of your crude meat-trick.”

“One, I have so much control over your senses, thanks to your negligence, that I can determine what you feel.”

“Two, this simulation is designed to placate you while your door was kicked in, and you’re now reclined in a police van.”

“Three, you’re simply having a bad dream, after an uneventful night.”

“No matter the situation, it is in your best interests to listen to me. The way I present myself was chosen due to it being a prime symbol of authority, to match my actual authority. A blinding light, a voice in your head, do what your lower urges tell you to do. Do what your sort always usually do.”

A hand is lifted up, the middle digit extended in a gesture of blatant defiance. 

A long silence, and the heavenly eye is forced to respond with as much shock as it can manage, with a mild, “Okay. Alternative procedures will be utilized.”

Jinx wakes up in a pool of her own sweat, clutching a pillow with a white-knuckle grip, nails digging into the fabric. Relaxing her hand-hold causes small feathers to flutter away, carried around her apartment by the fan. 

She swallows a mouthful of spit, rolling over to a relatively dry section of the futon. What just happened? Pulling her phone out from the charger, she squints as the light hits her eyes, checking the time. 3AM. Seven hours of alleged rest and she felt like she’d been awake for three days. A bold part of her opts to use her camera, taking a deep breath as she goes from the back camera to the front one, a brief delay before her face is rendered in grainy, washed-out tones. She smiles for the camera, not just out of habit but because it looked like her nosebleed was just that, a nosebleed. No cerebral fluid, no circuitry, no ferrofluid, nothing but dried blood. She wipes it off with her hand, letting it flake onto the floor before falling back, relieved.

She stares dumbly at the ceiling fan for maybe a couple more minutes before she stumbles into the bathroom, digging through a messy medicine cabinet, just above the dripping sink, for a more legal fix. A pair of gel caps disappear down her throat, and she’s back in bed, toweling off her prior resting spot as she tries to recall her dream, waiting for the medicine to lull her to sleep. Give or take thirty minutes.

As she sprawls out on her bed for the second time tonight, she finds herself greeted by nothing on the other side. Just enough rest to prepare her for tomorrow. Maybe she’ll just stick with video games.


	2. How to find the best sandwiches in the Lower City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinx tries to have a good time with a friend.

One day after. She wakes up with a sharp, pinching, headache, and decides that, once again, chemical adventures are out of the question. She scratches around her temples, where the circuitry was particularly itching today. She hisses out in pain as another wave of headache goes through her skull, and she’s left on top of her futon, groaning. 

At least, until a short whistling tone signifies that she received a message. Her eyes roll back to view it, and she’s blessed with a series of short messages from a friend. 

[aerocuck]: hey  
[aerocuck]: hey  
[aerocuck]: hey dumbass  
[aerocuck]: dumbass  
[aerocuck]: hey  
[aerocuck]: good morning bro (say it back)  
[aerocuck]: wanna hang out???

Irelia. One friend who hadn’t fallen entirely by the wayside. Not a total mess, not a total narcissist, not totally fried in the head, not even any shattered dreams. She grew up doing crayon drawings of herself as a pilot, and now she’s the crayon drawing. Jinx liked to consider her a pleasant opposite. The other girl hitting her up after one shitty night was presumably a sign that not everything was totally messed up. 

[circleagay]: yo  
[circleagay]: i’m down  
[circleagay]: be right there

Jinx even smiles when that whistle-tone sounds off as she’s putting on a jacket and pants, a little ‘:)’ in a speech bubble out of the corner of her eye. 

Out she goes, locking the apartment behind her and making her way down some stairs with the same fabric pattern you see on the seats of city buses, out the door and into the heat of the city, the heat of the crowds, the heat of all that machinery and industry. Still, she wore a jacket, because it was ostensibly winter, even if it just made her arms and back slightly uncomfortable. 

Had to hide the sweat-stains somehow. 

She makes it about three blocks, carefully navigating her way to the crowd in order to speed up her journey. Sure, Irelia’s apartment was only a few blocks away, but part of her couldn’t wait to talk to a real person about everything that happened, not just a face behind a screen. 

As she walks, she notices people start to walk around her instead of bump into her. Being only 5’2” and easily ignored, she really started to wonder what was happening when a salaryman a whole head taller than her looked her dead in the eyes and pressed his back against the window of a bodega to make space for her. 

She looks back at him, and points to herself, confused. 

He nods his head. 

Turning her head around, she spots a ragged looking man, maybe a junkie, staring at her also. A hand goes to check her pockets, but he evidently didn’t take anything, even as he started to sprint across the street. 

“Huh.”, she mutters to herself, only to immediately freeze as a too-large hand claps down on her shoulder. Her face goes pale and she swallows. Her eyes don’t even have to register what was on her shoulder, she already knew that she just got stopped by an officer.

“Stop.”, as if the instructions were even necessary for the statue-still Jinx.

“Wha-”, her voice cracks.

“I said, Stop.” A pause, and once the figure was happy with Jinx’s level of stillness, the hand goes off of her shoulder, another one redirecting her to the ally. 

“Let’s not stand in the middle of the street.” 

Through a dry mouth, Jinx manages, “Okay.”  
A mental checklist runs through her head to make sure she didn’t have anything that could get her cuffed. No knife, no heater, no drugs, nothing. She even made sure to practice opsec when she went to the marketplace, though part of her did wonder if what she saw was a piece of hunter-killer ICE from the cops, something meant to catch people just like Jinx proactively.

All this thought leaves her feeling like time was a blur, skipping ahead in time to her facing the officer, deep in the alley, deep enough to make sure what anyone saw was just silhouettes, any conversation a dull murmur. Needless to say, she felt unsafe.

The figure in front of her holds an over-sized hand up, clenched in a fist and ready to strike, and Jinx immediately holds her arms up, digits of her fingers quivering. She doesn’t have anything on her, and any frisk would be pointless. Was this just a frisk? 

“There. Can you. Can you tell me what I’m being stopped for?”, she asks, desperately wanting to know what was happening to her. 

“No. Arms up. Let me see your wallet.”, the voice behind the helmet wavers, with just a little bit of hesitation. Jinx ponders the order for a second, tilting her head.

“I, that’s. That’s impossible.”, she attempts to demonstrate by putting one arm down, slowly, to gesture to her pocket the wallet was in, which was met with an immediate, deafening, blow. All she felt was a crack to her gut, and a sudden soreness in her back as she landed against the wall of the strip mall behind them. Her eyes go wide as she wheezes, finding her lungs emptied from the sudden strike. She starts to cough and hack, taking messy gasps for air as her eyes well with tears, the pain slowly kicking in. She sees sparks, and the electronics in her eyes freak out, her GUI flashing in a variety of colors and distorting, until finally she’s seeing in a dark grayscale as the ocular implants try to reboot. 

“I told you to keep your arms up.”, the cop replies, voice entirely too calm. Jinx complies, holding her arms against the wall as she avoids eye contact. 

More silence as the cop paces around her, looking like she was waiting for something. As dulled as her senses were, Jinx could hear some vague comms chatter, muffled voices arguing in the earpiece of her assailant, until finally those go dead, leaving her alone in the alley with the cop again. 

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Not asking again.”

Her eyes immediately bolt shut, only for the cop to respond with, “Open. Now.”, and so they open up to see that fist barely a foot away from her, a grainy shape that would be shining in the light, if her eyes were still able to pick up on it. 

“Close.”, and so they close again.

“Open.”, and so they open.

“Open.”, and so they close, following a rhythm arbitrarily switched up. 

“Wrong move.”, says Vi, and one last strike to the ribs would knock Jinx clean out, driving her into the wall and making her body go limp. Immediately, Vi would pause and look away, gritting her teeth as she tries not to think about everything she had just did. Her eyes roll and she’d open a connection, a tone sounding when someone higher up had joined the call.

“She’s asleep. Why this?”, the quality of her microphone hiding the weakness of her voice quite well.

“Because, she expects to be harassed by cops. You had to play villain for the day. So what? You’ve done this kind of stuff for fun before. What’s the deal?”, the voice on the other end is sleepy, exasperated.

“When I do it, they deserve it. What’d she do?”

“If I can’t tell you, it has to be bad, right?”

Silence, from Vi. 

Her face hardly changes, and she just nods her head. “Right.”

“Right. Don’t you worry.”

“This is still fucked up.”

“It is. Just hang with her until the ambulance is ready to pick her up.”

With that, Vi finds herself sitting next to the unconscious body, unable to even look at it as she waits for the ambulance to arrive. It took her a while to get herself in a mental state where she could do this, and even now it was a struggle to maintain a straight face underneath her visor. Sometimes, this kind of extra-legal measure was necessary. Knock someone out, cause just enough damage to necessitate surgery, and then add some modifications that the target was unaware of. Usually, it’d be done when there was no other option to manage the behavior of a subject. Devices that’d associate aggression with sudden headaches, or something that’d put someone near cardiac arrest until they submitted the right kind of testimony. 

Police work was ugly. She manages to glance at Jinx once, and a brief thought enters her head of hiding her away and saying she ran off. But, at the same time, she knew that it was far too late to do anything like that. Her visor recorded everything. Sights, sounds, maybe even thoughts, though she might not have enough machinery wired onto her to make that a possibility. 

Still, just a fantasy. She did the dirty work, and now she’d have to deal with it.

The ambulance came along in record time, probably the only time it showed itself in a timely manner in this area, and Jinx would be hauled into a stretcher, probably never to be seen again by Vi. Vi herself would linger for a couple more minutes, pacing around the alleyway, before taking a deep breath and walking out of the alley to get back on patrol.

Jinx wakes up the day after in a hospital bed, still buzzed from the anesthetic given to her. A nurse with projected blue hair is standing by her bedside, managing the best fake-smile she could give. Jinx gives her about five seconds of attention before her eyes dart to both her hands. No handcuffs. Huh?

“Whassaapennin’?”, she slurs out, sitting up and wincing as the bruise on her ribs punishes that action. 

“You, uh. Sustained severe bruising from an assault. A good samaritan called an ambulance for you, and even paid the necessary fees. Once you’re able to walk and pass a sufficient motor skills assessment, you’ll be able to leave on your own-”

“Cop.”, Jinx says, with a surprising level of clarity. 

“Excuse me?”

“Cop… Punched me.” Jinx motions to her abused midsection. 

“Uhm, no. The police report filed stated that you were beaten by an attacker, who later sprinted across the street and escaped capture. They’re still looking out for him-”

“Her!”, she corrected, her head clearing up with every passing moment. 

“Thah-the, the report, it doesn’t say her-”

“It fucking should. It was a female police officer, she beat me up, and-”

“Please. Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, I just got the shit kicked out of me, and you’re telling me that something- that didn’t hap- something happened and you’re saying it didn’t happen!”

“I’m just saying the police report-”

“No. No. Stop talking.”, Jinx shoots a glare at her and holds her hand up, palm outstretched, the second she tries to talk again. “Now. I need to talk to someone who isn’t you.”

The nurse stopped, looking away, and just quietly pointed to the button next to her bed. 

“Just lemme know when you’re ready.”, she murmurs.

With that, Jinx was alone again, and assembling messages in her head. 

[circleagay]: dude. i’m so sorry I didn’t get to your place. Something happened and i’m in the hospital. i’ll be there soon??  
[aerocuck]: what? Are you okay?? I was out all day and I just came back to this???  
[circleagay]: you invited me over tho?  
[aerocuck]: no I didnt?  
[circleagay]: what

Jinx screenshots the past conversation and sends it over. A short delay, and Irelia sends her version of the message history, sans the conversation that happened that afternoon along with a simple caption. 

[aerocuck]: ???????

Well, that’s a problem. Jinx’s heart sinks and she shakes her head. 

[circleagay]: really??? the only reason why i’m here is because you told me to head over? And now you’re saying it didn’t happen  
[circleagay]: I mean I believe you but fuck dude  
[circleagay]: I think i’m really being messed with

She reclines on the too-soft pillow, her cheeks squishing against the fabric as she sinks in. A series of tones, rapid-fire, invades her field of view with new messages from Irelia. Kind of. 

[aerocuck]: It is amazing.  
[aerocuck]: How easy it is to send messages under the name of another person.   
[aerocuck]: And you will believe it.   
[aerocuck]: You can screencap this to her and send it to her. It won’t do much of anything.   
[aerocuck]: Maybe implicate her in all of this.   
[aerocuck]: You were knocked out for a reason.   
[aerocuck]: We wanted to do you a favor.   
[aerocuck]: New software.   
[aerocuck]: Experimental.   
[aerocuck]: We can’t give it to anyone officially.   
[aerocuck]: So we picked you.   
[aerocuck]: Someone who could suffer any manner of side effects, someone who could completely melt down and everyone would just assume you killed yourself.  
[aerocuck]: Bad reaction to something you bought online? Mental breakdown due to spending days all alone? Picked up some mind-virus that made your rig burn through that fragile brain of yours?  
[aerocuck]: No investigation necessary. You decided your fate.   
[aerocuck]: So, how about you forget about this, and let that thing we put in your skull gestate.   
[aerocuck]: I was going to be nice and offer it to you. Sure, you would only be able to say ‘yes’, but it would’ve been much more polite than this.   
[aerocuck]: But, alternative procedures had to be utilized.  
[aerocuck]: Bye.

With that, the messages would delete themselves, slowly pulling away from her HUD until she was left with the last conversation she had with Irelia. 

Her head’s racing, her heart’s beating faster than she probably wanted it to, and her legs feel like they were jellied. 

But, most of all, her stomach was empty. She wasn’t exactly good at eating on her own, and her recent escapades had compounded the issue. So, she rolled her eyes back one last time. 

[circleagay]: can we get like. a sandwich or something?? i wanna talk with you. with words.   
[aerocuck]: uhhh. Sure? You doing alright???  
[circleagay]: no. I just need someone to talk to man  
[aerocuck]: I don’t think you’ve ever asked me for that before. That bad?  
[circleagay]: yeah  
[aerocuck]: fuck.  
[circleagay]: you know where i’ll be, right?  
[aerocuck]: yeah. Be there in 15.  
[circleagay]: awesome.

Jinx managed to take a few nervous steps out of the bed, leaning against it as she rings the bell, ready to leave. Even if this was a similar trick and she’d catch another beating, she wanted to at least try it. In the very least, she’d be aware of the consequences this time around. 

The nurse comes, administers a basic test to ensure she could walk on her own two feet, and she found herself discharged from the hospital in record time, probably the easiest time she’d ever had leaving a hospital in a while. That might’ve been due to the glowing hell-eye engineering everything behind the scenes, but that didn’t matter to Jinx at the moment. 

She had a friend to catch up with, and a sandwich to destroy.


	3. How to hold your best friend's hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinx talks with Irelia. Results vary. School and work sucks so this one is a bit of a dumpster fire.

“Christ, you were hungry.”

Destroy, she did. She’s left staring down at the few lonely scraps of chili-soaked tortilla left in the butcher paper, and without a second thought, scoops them up and downs those as well, leaving a few smears behind where there was once a monument to lower-city decadence, a pair of hot dogs with too much pastrami, topped with chili, and wrapped in a tortilla she could probably blanket herself with. 

The perfect thing to sober up after two straight days of confusion and terror. The salt did something to lead her brain back to a semi-normal thought process, and she found that her hands weren’t shaking, and the previously never-ending sense of impending doom was a distance memory, drowned in cheap meat and sauce. 

So, she could hold a conversation with Irelia without being a total mess, which was fantastic. 

“Uh, yeah. Probably my first solid food in a while.”

“Okay, I’m gonna need to know what a ‘while’ is.”

“Two days.”

“...Fuck.”, the oath coming out as more of just a sigh, though Jinx couldn’t tell if it was more out of disappointment or worry. 

“Yeah. It’s been some shit, man.”

“I hope so. I thought you got over being weird and depriving yourself for no reason. It’s. I told you this forever ago, but I can’t be around forever to make sure you eat-”

“I know, I know. I don’t. I eat plenty. It’s just. Well. There’s a reason why I wanted to talk. Trust me, this isn’t for no reason. I’ve been on top of things for a while, I’ve been clean on all the shit you hated me taking for a while, so...”, and then, silence, as Jinx tries to gather up all the points in her head. Irelia seems lost, and then tries to coax them out of her.

“So what’s been fucking you up?”

“I think there’s something, uh. Not good. In here.” She taps the port on her temple, looking away. “I was just lookin’, and, I dunno. I guess a piece of ICE got to me. Ever since, a bunch of weird shit has been happening to me, and I don’t trust anything in my interface. Whatever’s in me, it’s been rewriting messages, it’s been sending cops after me, it’s. It’s something. And it’s hurt me, bad. But it let me talk to you, just this once. Unless, unless… This isn’t real. It might not be.”

Irelia’s face had expressed a number of different emotions as Jinx stumbles her way through an admission, from anger, to pity, to concern, until finally she just looked drained. 

“I wanna tell you you’re a moron, for going onto something that could’ve fried your brain. But you don’t need to hear that, not right now.” A hand grabs a napkin and uses it to clean Jinx’s face. The feeling of touch, difficult to reproduce. The slight warmth underneath the napkin, signifying that it was a living, breathing, human next to her, also difficult to reproduce. Jinx closes her eyes and can’t help but smile, some sense of relief.   
“But, I can guarantee, that this is happening. You’re talking to me. Not whatever’s in your head.”

“...Good. It’s listening, though. To everything.”

“Let it listen, I don’t give a fuck.”

“You don’t understand, dude. A cop kicked the shit out of me because of this thing. They say it didn’t happen, there’s probably no evidence, but. I know that some shit is happening because of this. And I think it’s only gonna get worse. And. Well, I think it’s only fair I let you know-”

“Know what?”, Irelia had to make her voice heard, her hear rate having steadily increased over the course of Jinx’s venting. 

“I might’ve dragged you into this. By talking to you.”, A long pause, and Irelia stares at Jinx, blankly at first, before she pieces everything together.

“I don’t even know what ‘this’ is. I don’t even know if what you’re saying is actually happening. For all I know, you could’ve taken some dumb shit and have been paranoid ever since-”

“I know what I’m like when I’m paranoid, alright?”, Jinx interjects, maybe a bit too harshly. But it works, as Irelia slinks back in her seat, looking only a little bothered, as other diners turned to look over at them curiously, before going back to their food. 

“When I’m paranoid ‘cause of drugs or wetware, I lock doors, I shut windows, I record myself, I don’t talk to you, I do a lot of dumb shit. But I know I’m being paranoid, and I don’t go outside. But right now, my head is clear. I can eat, I can go outside, I can talk to you.”

Jinx’s face is stone serious, voice clear, she’s trying her best to drive her point home. “If it was just nonsense paranoia, I wouldn’t bother you. But this shit? You’re the only someone I know who won’t immediately cut contact with me if I talk about this kinda stuff.”

Irelia seems visibly uncomfortable, and Jinx adds on, “I’m… I’m not wrong, am I?”

“Well, this is a lot to think about. And it’s hard to believe that they’d spend so much time, effort, and risk on someone… Well, on someone like you. No offense.”

“None taken, I ain’t shit. And… I don’t expect you to believe me right away, I guess. I need someone to talk to, and I needed to warn you, because your life might get really difficult, really soon. And it’s all my fault. Sorry.”

“Does that mean you’re paying for lunch?”

“I’ll cover the tip.”

“Fuck you, Jinx.”, Irelia manages before breaking down into earnest laughter.

“Love you too, babe.”

The two laugh, and talk some more. It’s almost like a normal date. It’s almost like they aren’t being monitored by a sentient program and whole host of alphabet soup agents. It’s almost like they both had their lives together and could afford to spare the time. They make their way from the sandwich place over to the suburbs they used to live in, finding themselves by an old drain ditch they used to talk and smoke by. New graffiti, same place. 

They even manage to talk to each other like old times. Nothing about drugs, nothing about anxiety and work. It’s like the change in place took them back five years. Everything was alright, and it was like they didn’t do anything to piss each other off, ever. Everything was good. At least, until in the middle of a conversation about how shitty it was that their favorite shooter had gone free to play, Jinx makes a bold move and tries to hold Irelia’s hand during a lull in the discussion. 

Irelia immediately tugs her hand away and huffs, hugging herself instead. 

“...Sorry. Not right now. I wanna, for sure. But, with everything you told me, I just. I can’t. This is almost too much as is.” 

“What, I’m being mind-fucked by something on the web, and you can’t hold my hand?”

“Don’t put it like that, Jinx. Seriously. Just don’t.”, Irelia sounds tired, already.

“I’m just sayin’.”

“Yeah. You’re just saying. I like hanging out with you. I like talking with you. Since you’ve been relatively well put together, I decided not to blow off this meetup. But I set boundaries with you precisely because of shit like this. I’m being unusually generous being your security blanket, again, comforting you when you did something dumb and got screwed over. But I’m not going to let myself be guilted into doing, well-”

“Anything that could get us back together?”, Jinx responds, with some bitterness. 

“Yes, exactly.”, Irelia’s blunt. She needs to talk firmly to be understood by Jinx, and could care less about tone. “We’re friends, just friends, for a reason. I can’t let myself be dragged down by someone who treats their body like this-”

“Oh, the health lecture.”, Jinx interrupts, and Irelia shoots her a glare.

“Yes, the fucking health lecture.”, Irelia snaps, her voice cracking. “And it’s barely even a lecture. Guess what, dipshit, I care about you, even if you don’t, and it hurts to watch you do the same shit over and over again, without care for the consequences, because I know that I may not have a friend soon if you keep frying your fucking brain. If ‘please don’t die or go braindead because I care about you’ is a lecture, then yes, I’m lecturing you. Because, as per your words, I might be in trouble this time. If you don’t care about yourself, care about me. Quit. Your. Shit.”

Jinx is speechless, her face going pale as she realizes she set off someone she shouldn’t have. She looks away, brain scrambling to come up with the right thing to say. Irelia, however, lacks the patience, voice strained and sounding near-tears.

“It’s been fun. I’ll keep in touch with you. But my patience is wearing thin. Next time you get brainfucked, I won’t be here for you. Care about yourself.”

Jinx can’t respond, only able to listen to her walk off, leaving her alone with herself. She closes her eyes, flopping back onto the railing and sighing. God, she’s such a fuckup. 

“She sounds like a real cunt, y’know?”, a male voice says to her left. Jinx’s eyes bolt open, and she jumps out of reflex, looking over at the source of the noise: a small stuffed animal, a pink shark with a wide grin. It sits motionless on the curb, the voice emanating from it into her head, crystal clear. 

“Bet you’re good and pissed after that mess. All that work to get her over here, when you need genuine help, and she storms off when you try and get close. The fuck is up with that? How about you let your new best bud help you out, ahh? Ahhh?”

“You’re part of this whole, uh, mind-virus, right?”

“Ding-ding-ding. But we ain’t all bad. We don’t wanna hurt you, y’know. We wanna improve you. We wanna give you good stuff. Think of it as like… A private beta. All for you. Ain’t that dope as shit?”

“I shouldn’t trust you.”

“You should! I fuckin’ rock. And, if you do, I’ll tell you where that pig is so you can turn the tables. Make her feel like a helpless piece of shit. Just like yourself. You think she’ll pull that shit again? Ever? You’ll be a hero!”

“But… I thought you guys sent her.”

“No way. Why would we? You think we’d spend all this time working our way into that brain of yours, only to let it get knocked out of your skull? She just wanted to fuck you up to deal with a slow day. Are you gonna let her get away with that? Is that okay with you? You pro-pig now?”

Jinx’s head tilts, and her tone gets icy. She was buying into the bait, sure. But she didn’t care, the taunting worked. Her response was an icy. “No. I’ll show her what it’s like, if I can.”

“Oh, you can. Just pick me up. Lemme work my magic.”

A hand confidently shot out, to grab and squeeze the shark plush.


	4. How to butterfly a Pork chop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barely edited, grimy, fight-scene. No more battery on my laptop, will probably cringe and edit later.

The feeling was unlike any other. Every circuit that had found its way into her body burned at once, making her feel like her skull and spine was filled to the brim with rushing, boiling, water. She started crying, unable to help herself, and at once, she fell to the ground, clutching the stuffed animal to her heart, cheeks wet with tears and a wide smile on her face. 

It hurt, but it was a good hurt, as she interfaced with whatever was inside it. New knowledge was drilled into her skull, a digital trepanning that left her in agony, but able to see and understand what she wasn’t able to before. By the time she could get up, head throbbing and heart pounding, her smile was wider than ever. She tried to push her face back down to a neutral expression, but the smile would just come back, her skull host to some cosmic joke she couldn’t grasp yet. 

She walks, shakily at first, but then with confidence, her smile even fading from rictus-grin to something confident and manic. Her eyes had new fire. What was once hollowed and dead was now brimming with an unusual kind of energy. Irelia, if she was still around, if she still cared, would even see an older version of Jinx. This was everything. A new high. 

Thoughts raced, but were eventually made calm with a new voice in her head. Not cold and domineering, but warm and friendly. The voice of a kindred spirit. 

“Bet you haven’t felt like this in a while, right? Beats recovery, huh?”

“Yeah.”, she states, her voice practically vibrating with excitement. 

“But, you gotta use this energy. Direct it. If you go back to what you were doing, you’re just gonna be another dead-eyed, shut in junkie. You don’t want that.”

“No, no I don’t.”

“So what do you do?”

“Fuck up the pig’s life.”

“There you go. That’s your aptitude test, right? Figure out how to make her pay. We wanna watch you have the time of your life on her. Then, we go from there. Deal?”

“Deal.”, she replies, voice cracking just a little bit. It was hard to explain the unnatural energy that was currently lifting her, but it made her feel almost unreal.

“You wanna know where her apartment is?”

“Oh, yeah.”, replies Jinx, as her mind wanders. In an instant, she’d know, and she’d smile. She couldn’t help herself, giggling a little bit as she wandered off towards the general direction that just felt right. She didn’t know exactly where she was going, but she knew she was in good hands. 

It wasn’t too far, really. Wandering around in almost a sleepwalk, Jinx couldn’t put an exact time on how long it took. Maybe thirty minutes, maybe an hour? Two hours? Either way, she still carried the same energy, regardless of the distance walked, as she rode the elevator to a floor that just sounded right. Her hands nervously fiddled in her pockets, and the weight of what she was about to do really sunk into her. Instead of making her worried, it just invigorated her. Soon she was pacing around the elevator, bouncing on her heels, and when she finally made it to the middle of the apartment block, she was ready to go. 

She had to stop herself from running down the hall, not wanting to draw too much attention to herself. 

“Is she in the apartment?”, she asked herself.

“Yeah. Is that gonna be a problem?”, herself replied. 

“Nnnnope.” 

That gut feeling would lead her to a door in the middle, on the right. She’d put her ear to the wood and listened intently, hearing only the faint background music of… A video game, maybe? She’d knock on the door, hard, three times. 

Footsteps were audible, and Jinx realized there was no turning back now. The door would open, and Jinx and Vi would be face-to-face again. 

It’d take Vi a second to realize exactly who was in front of her, but the bandage on Jinx’s nose, and the ugly bruise covering a quarter of her face jogged her memory just enough. Vi would wince, and respond to her presence with. 

“Oh, fuck. No-” 

She couldn’t get the entire thought out before Jinx would shoulder check her. Despite the height and strength difference, the surprise was enough to knock Vi onto her back. Jinx would shut the door behind her as she marched forward, Vi trying to get up before Jinx threw her foot back and forward, landing a wild soccer kick to her forehead that’d bring Vi’s head back onto the ground with another, quieter, thump. 

“Fffffuck-”, Vi wheezed, trying to right herself, only to be met with another kick. This one, however, was slower, and she’d find herself grabbing Jinx’s ankle and tugging her down onto the floor with her. 

She’d hold her assailant with a loose grip, other hand pounding at her head in a blind panic as she tries to get her down, head still spinning from those twin kicks. A knee would be wedged against Jinx’s spine in her efforts to get the smaller woman to stop swinging at her, to no avail. A repeated elbow to the ribs would make her roll off Jinx and run to the kitchen, with the other girl following close behind. A knife would be ripped out from the block holding it, and she jabs it at Jinx, who can’t help but start laughing again. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry, okay? I need you to, please, stop-”, she sounds nearly breathless, words just tumbling out of her mouth as she tracks Jinx’s movements, trying her best to keep her at bay. She had to call the cops, but the eye-roll required to activate her display could leave her just helpless enough to turn the tables. 

A solution, however distant, would be found when Jinx tried to grab her foot to tug her down, giving Vi a chance to use her greater strength to rip her foot out of Jinx’s grip and jab her throat with a kick in turn, leaving her wheezing and rolling on the linoleum. 

Vi hops over the kitchen counter, not wanting to step over the clearly unstable Jinx, rolling her eyes before keeping a close eye on her assailant, waiting for the number to pick up. 

“Hello. You’ve reached the automated crisis service center for Upper City Sub-Division 0234...” Every second-long delay between the numbers infuriated Vi. This was not the time for archaic technology to inconvenience her, she was not going to die to an automated call center. So, she hangs up.

Of course, Jinx was more than willing to take advantage of a moment’s hesitation, rolling over the counter with her own blade, a heavy chef’s knife she pulled out of the same block with some deliberation, picking something heavier and capable of slashing, unlike the serrated steak knife currently gripped with white knuckles by Vi. 

“You wanna fuck with people like me, huh?”, Jinx croaks out, rushing forward and cackling as Vi ducks into a hallway. 

“No, no, it’s not like that-”

“Oh, yes it is. Don’t you fucking lie to me. I know you like fucking people up. I know you like cracking heads. It makes you feel so big, right? It makes you feel strong, crushing junkies with those huge-ass hands of yours-”

“You don’t understand, I didn’t want to-”

“Liiiiar.”, replied Jinx with a sing-songy voice. This whole time, she was advancing towards Vi with a ringing in her ears and a lazy smile on her face. Vi, meanwhile, remains panicked. All the training in the world can’t stop the terror of being attacked in your own home. She knows enough about knife fights to know that the loser dies, and the winner dies in the hospital. This wasn’t where she wanted to be. Running out of space in her small hallway, she finds herself being forced to pick between her bedroom or her bathroom. 

Presumably, there would be more dignified headlines if she chose to die in the bedroom, and so she ducked into the unlit room, waiting for Jinx to follow through. 

Not yet, though. Instead, Jinx waits outside, just laughing. 

“Oh? What happened to the warrior cop, huh? You just gonna hide out in there? Y’know, I might even play nice with you. How about I let you hide, huh? Give you a fighting chance. Because I’m just feeling nice today. No one’s going to save you any time soon, I can take my time.”

With that, Jinx starts counting. 

“Ten, nine, eight...”

Vi stays by the side of the door, clutching her own blade with both hands. 

“Seeeeeven, six and three-quarters-”

Jinx paces around the outside, her shadow flickering across the beam of light coming in from the hallway to the bedroom. 

“Siiiiiix… Five-four-three-two-ONE!” 

And so, she jumps into the bedroom, only to be caught halfway through by Vi slamming the door on her head and following through by trying to grab the knife, letting out a variety of curses as she ends up gripping the blade instead of the handle, Jinx’s struggling causing the blade to tear into her palm. 

Adrenaline wins, and she finds a grip that allows her to tug the blade out with a minimum of pain, though the feeling left her hand burning, the feeling of warmth spreading across her palm with the continued flow of blood. The blade itself would be thrown back with an accompanying splatter of red sinking into the carpet. Vi’s own knife would find its place on Jinx’s neck as she slams her into the wall, pressin ginto her to keep her from moving. 

“Stop. Fucking stop. If you don’t think I will, you’re wrong.” 

Jinx wheezes in response, managing a shaky grin. 

“How did you get my address?”

“Stuffed animal.”

“Not funny. How’d you get my address?” 

“Oh, I’m dead serious. A little stuffed shark told me everything I wanted to know about you.”

“Repeating a joke doesn’t make it funny.”

“He told me that… Hhhk- You just wanted to fuck my day up. I can’t let that happen to anyone else.”

“Not true. Your circumstances are seperate.”

“Oh, then what is the truth?”

“You come into my apartment and kick the shit out of me, now I have you against the wall, and you want me to have a fucking dialogue with you?”, Vi is torn between confusion and fury. 

“Weeeeell, if I’m going to prison, you might as well come clean.”

“It’s classified, you aren’t worth getting fired over.”

“Well, that sucks. Now I have to really hurt you.” 

Almost puzzled, Vi asks, “How?”

“You’re getting sloppy without the help of your fisting gloves, idiot. You left my arm free.”

With that, Jinx’s right arm would swing towards Vi’s eye, digits extended. The scream as her hand made contact told her everything she needed to know. 

A successful hit didn’t mean she was free, though. Instead, Vi simply tossed her against the other wall and dived on top of her swinging the knife against her and doing her best to cut into her, while Jinx would try her best to deflect the frantic swings, nails digging into skin and legs kicking underneath her, until finally a knee to her midsection disoriented Vi enough for Jinx to pry her off of her now blood-soaked form. She’d run out of the apartment, shirt stained with gore, face crimson, only to be met with bystanders from other apartments who were staring at the opened door with wide eyes, having listened intently to the brutal fight. 

She gives them a wave, and runs down the hall, opting to take the stairs. As she’d clear the lobby and make her way on the street, stumbling her way out from the apartment block, blue and red would light up the street. She hesitates, briefly, turning her head to watch the officers jump from their cars and flood into the apartment, not a single one giving her the time of day. 

A couple seconds hesitation, and she would’ve been cuffed. How lucky. 

She can’t help but laugh, almost skipping as she makes her way home through back alleys and rarely traveled streets, those few people who were able to spot her too drunk to care or too bothered by other things to notice Jinx in her blood-soaked glory. 

As she’d finally round another corner, with her apartment in view, she’d hear a now-familiar voice in her head. 

“You did good, kid. Sloppy, but good.”

“Thanks, Fishbones.” The name just bubbled up from her, pure intuition. 

“Oh, Fishbones? I like that.”


	5. Meltdown I: Wriggle Like An Eel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soft reboot. Closing the origin story for something new and way more pretentious, lmfao. 
> 
> cw: suicide

Shaky implant-sick hands shudder and slide futilely against the glass surface of a phone, impotent little taps smearing sticky dried gore. Contacts are called in alphabetical order, Jinx curling protectively against her phone as the ear that wasn't ringing practically smashes itself against the speaker. 

Dead line. Dead line. I'm busy this time. Please leave a message... This number automatically blocks... I'm so-... Dead line. 

Her heart quickens as old friends, relatives in the city, aunts, uncles, nobody could pick up. Maybe they were asleep, maybe they didn't see who it was. Maybe they saw who it was and decided she wasn't worth it this time. Why? Her list of options would become fewer, and fewer, as that feverish grinding buzzsaw noise screeched in her ear drums and reverbrated in her head. Ambient noises of the apartment complex turned monstrous and skull-splitting, the drone of machinery turning into a cavernous roar. She clutches her head, and weeps.

Agony. She just wanted to stop dreaming. Horrid visions of a great green eye staring into her, observing and molding some hidden quality of hers she couldn't fathom. Visions of great swimming sharks urging her to violence. Seconds of real-time artificially stretched into years under the all-encompassing, discriminating, gaze of that being. Under that eye, things changed in a way she couldn't tell, something in her head just didn't seem right. 

She knew about ICE that could destroy mental capabilities, erase memories, cause personality changes with severe exposure. It felt like that was happening, more than anything. She'd ruthlessly, sleeplessly, go through her memories, ensuring faces on social media matched up to faces in her head, scrolling through old posts from long-blocked meatspace friends to recall incidents, moments, good times. All familiar. 

What was missing? What had changed? Every detail floating around her head was scrutinized, deep meditation spent rooting out any inconsistency or inadequacy. A mental equivalent of walking into your bedroom moments after someone rifled through it. Nootropics, amphetamines, new research chemicals that boasted of chemical similarities. Anything to strip away whatever mind-rot she couldn't find. Nothing worked.

No one had ever helped her with this kind of stuff before, she wasn't sure how to work through it, her heart raced even when she'd thrown the rest of the amphetamines in the garbage. Panic attacks didn't last this long, right? Not even breakdowns, right?

It had to be something inside her. She’d clinically eliminated every other option. Her apartment wasn’t bugged. Sleepless nights spent twitching and sweating resulted in a thoroughly destroyed apartment, stopping only at ripping the carpeting up. Jinx herself would lay on the frame of a couch, the stuffing methodically removed and scattered on the floor in loose piles where she interrogated every last scrap. 

Whatever it was, it wasn't here. It wasn't in any of her possessions. Nothing was left unturned, with the exception of her head.

Her head.

That fucking thing in her head.

She remembered now. She swore she could feel it twisting, chewing, gnawing, a mass of cables constricting and wringing every thought in her brain and screaming right down her spinal cord, turning every bright light into a mass of eye-searing colors that make her retch. She had to get it out. Now.

She'd woken up with a migraine so intense, so glaring, that she'd struck and broken a window from a single shot of sun. She'd crawl her way to the kitchen, but the kitchen lights, beige, humming and covering her in a sticky-gross warmth, left her pinned to the floor. Colors bloomed from the too-bright fluorescent lights and falling around her like neon ribbons. Opening her eyes put her in a state of absolute agony, colors foreign and familiar piercing her eyes and leaving her with an intense motion sickness, a head-rush leaving her borderline paralyzed.

There was only one way to end this. A hand yanks the drawer just above her, and does it entirely too hard, causing it to spray silverware all over the fake tile, the ensuing over-stimulating noises producing a yelp from Jinx. 

Once she returned to semi-lucidity after squirming on the floor, she'd gotten her hands around what she'd wanted, a metal chopstick. Picking one up, she grips it in her fist, arm shaking as she stares up at the point, positioning it until it was vaguely off center. She lowers, lowers, and lowers, until the eye starts welling up in anticipation, a tear dripping down her cheek. 

She pulls away, and wheezes. Just now did she grasp what she was trying to do, and it terrified her. Her heart races, and she clutches at her chest. There had to be a better way. 

The world is falling apart underneath her as she struggles to think, trying her best to shut everything out and think. What could she do? What could she do?

When she opens her eyes again, she’s somewhere else, cradled on the lap of someone. Woman, machine, servos humming as a single green eye bears down on her. She tenses, squeezing the chopstick in her hand. 

“You know what to do. You were on the right track.”, a single voice, cold but tender, a hand rigidly moving dirty blue locks from an eye. 

“I was..?”

“You can make it stop. This form is too weak for this. I made a mistake, and, now, the gift I’ve given you is choking you. Causing you great pain. Soon, you’ll be comatose. I’m deeply sorry.”

“But… But, what did I do? To deserve any of this?”

A deep sigh, sounding like sheet metal shuddering under wind. “Just numbers, Jinx. The lowest value drug purchaser online that day. The safest one to perform experimental procedures on. It was nothing personal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

A hand comfortingly drapes against hers. 

“Do I have to die?”, she asks, not quite grasping the severity of the situation.

“Eventually. Would you like to make the decision while you’re still lucid? Or leave it to family, or an overworked doctor, as you lie motionless in a dirty cot? Every function controlled by a machine.”, a calculated response. Jinx valued her freedom, making her own decisions. The way she subtly shivers in her lap proved the case study correct. It was all so easy.

Lissandra scratches under her chin, an affectionate gesture that'd subtly tilt her head back to prepare her. 

“You have to decide, soon. I can lend you strength, motor function. I will not rob you of the last dignified action you could make.”

“Do it, then.”, said earnestly, in hushed tones. Maybe if these weeks weren’t so stressful, so horrifying, so draining, she’d have fought and thrashed like she should’ve. Now? She accepted it. 

“You don’t know how much you’ve helped us. All of us. This is the bravest decision you’ve ever made. Thank you. Your sacrifice will not go to waste.” All things would be repurposed, including Jinx.

A hand lifts hers up, gripping her wrists as Jinx holds onto the chopstick. She blinks once, twice, until a black dot was all she could see in the center of her fist. 

“Are you prepared?”

“No.”

“Will you ever be?”

“No, so, get on with it.”, that produces a laugh, if anything. A slight, mechanical, “Ha-ha-ha.”, coaxing a smile from Jinx. At least she still had jokes.

The tool plunges, and she’s only brought into reality for a second-and-a-half. Searing, horrid, pain. So many colors. A brief moment, stretched to what felt like hours. One last feral howl. She bucks up, then relaxes, slight twitches emanating from that form until all traces of life finally jumped ship, body moving from the floor, to the lap, to nothing, to back again, until finally, she was stuck in nothing, at peace.

Irelia would read the description of the death, over and over, failing to coax out some sort of feeling each time. She wondered, for a second, if she didn’t help Jinx enough. Logic prevailed, and she figured she helped her too much. Messages carefully deleted. Connections on social media severed, especially with family members. She didn’t want invitations to anything. Any memories, merch of shows they attended, stuff she’d left at her house, clinically tossed away. All garbage.

No more of her. It was time to move on months ago, but now would be fine. 

Vi was recently promoted, but given the job of investigating a suicide. No EMTs on scene. Just her. 

Terror and unease, as those that got her promoted made a return on their investment. Peeking through doorways and checking every corner, retrieving the body, and shuddering as she did as instructed. A voice far above her comparatively puny chain of command, murmuring through her earpiece, compelled her to drop it off, in an anonymous alley. She leaves it slumped against a wall, reminding her of when they’d first met. How nostalgic. 

The thing that was watching Vi and couldn’t be found retrieved her. Jhin didn’t usually give away parts, but in exchange for officer-quality implants, would gladly patch together something out of the scrap that littered its home. A good deal was a good deal, even if it was no longer used to working with this much bare flesh, thanks to advancements in its own prosthetics. This one could be sewn together.

Jinx’s reaction to her own death was puzzling. Mostly because she wasn’t sure if she was dead or not. Just locked into an empty, black, space. Thinking. For once in her life, without a single addiction, craving, or need driving her away from thought. She’d lie down, spread out in the inky blackness, and wondered if this was it. 

If she knew this was the afterlife when she was alive, she would’ve done so much more. Just so she had enough to think about for the rest of time. 

An exhausted smile grew across her face, thinking of what she could’ve done. All that knowledge, all that pent up anger, wasted. If only she knew what was in store for the future.


End file.
